


Free Will

by fadesfanfic



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, cw: possibly abusive interactions? They're definitely not healthy, spoilers for kotet chapter 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-14 14:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadesfanfic/pseuds/fadesfanfic
Summary: Takes place at the end of KotET chapter 5. Vaylin's precarious and mysterious ally from Ziost takes objection to her treatment of the GEMINI droids. (spoilers for KotET)





	Free Will

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be part of a longer work, but I figured I'd post it now.

Lycaea approaches the GEMINI captain. At her feet is the head of one of the Iokath droids. And Vaylin, standing above, who threw it there.

    “Make - it - obey - me!” Vaylin snarls at the droid.

    “I only require a connection."

    The GEMINI captain recoils. She’s trapped in the shield holding her up. Lycaea doesn’t even know if she can resist it or leave.

    Lycaea stomps heavily towards them. Vaylin should’ve sensed her by now, but in the chance she hasn’t, she doesn’t want to surprise her.

    “Oh, it’s you,” Vaylin says bluntly. She doesn’t even turn to face her. “You’re always running off to someplace or other.”

    In another time, Lycaea would’ve responded to that with something like _A Sith must have her freedom_. But she doesn’t want to let herself get distracted.

    “You can’t,” she says.

    Vaylin raises an eyebrow. “I _can’t_ do what, little Sith?”

    “You can’t force the GEMINI captain to follow your orders.”

    Vaylin laughs. The sound is bitter.

    “Of course I can,” she says. “It’s just a robot.”

    “I didn’t mean it's not possible,” Lycaea says, making a long arc around the Iokath droid and Vaylin in an attempt to get close to the GEMINI, who is regarding her with suspicious red eyes. “I mean that you _shouldn’t_.”

    Vaylin laughs even harder.

    Lycaea is aware how useless her words sound. Heck, she shouldn’t even be on this side of the argument. She was raised Imperial, raised to believe in power justifying everything else. Even if she can now wrap her mind around the fact that no people deserve to be slaves, droids are another thing. You might as well argue for the freedom of your toaster.

    But - it still _feels_ wrong. The look in the GEMINI captain’s eyes doesn’t look like a toaster. She looks afraid. She looks trapped. She looks -

\- like her.

    Lycaea quickly banishes the weak thought.

    “What’s this?” Vaylin asks. “Where you try to convince me that you can get this thing to obey my orders without reprogramming?”  
    “I _will_ Empress!” the GEMINI shouts. Probably a fear response. She’d say anything to avoid being reprogrammed. Lycaea doesn’t believe her, but she also doesn’t blame her.

    “Oh hush,” Vaylin says. “You had your chance.”

    “I’m not going to lie to you,” Lycaea says. “I never have.”

    Vaylin rolls her eyes.

    “The GEMINI droids are suboptimal in their functionality,” the Iokath droid says.

    “Oh, shut up,” Vaylin and Lycaea reply in unison.

    Vaylin scowls when she sees they had the same thoughts.

    “You can’t guarantee the GEMINI will obey your orders,” Lycaea says.

    “Yes you can!” the GEMINI shouts.

    Vaylin looks between them.

    “You can’t guarantee _anything_ with free will will always follow your orders,” Lycaea says again. She steps closer to Vaylin. Vaylin puts one hand on her lightsaber.

    “That is why they are suboptimal,” the Iokath droid says. Vaylin kicks it a couple meters away.

    “That’s the way it works,” Lycaea says. “That’s what free will means.”

    “Free will is for the strong,” Vaylin says, making a fist to emphasize her point. “Everyone else -” she sighs - “does what I tell them to.”

    Lycaea internally groans. She recognizes this. She recognizes herself in this. How did she ever break free from that thinking? Was it just because she wasn’t strong enough to terrorize everyone into compliance?

    Vaylin walks over to the Iokath droid’s head. She grabs it. “Now, where were we?”

    Lycaea steps in front of the GEMINI captain. The captain is being very quiet. Lycaea imagines she doesn't want Vaylin to refocus her rage on her.

    “I won’t let you.”

    Vaylin, holding the droid's head in her hands, turns to face her.

    “I won’t let you brainwash her,” Lycaea repeats. She’s acutely aware of the lightsaber hanging on her belt. Every instinct she has tells her to grab it, to fight.

    Anger sparks around Vaylin in the Force. One hand holds the Iokath droid, the other has the beginnings of Force lightning on the tips of her fingers.

    “You won’t do what I tell you to either,” says Vaylin. Her voice doesn’t sound angry really - a little softer. Betrayed.

    “I do when it’s something I’m capable of doing - morally or physically,” Lycaea says. “But I don’t when it’s not.”

    Vaylin’s face turns into a grim scowl.

    “I’m here because I want to be and not because I’m afraid.”

    Vaylin’s hand clenches around the Iokath droid.

    “Shut up!” she says.

    “I’m with you because I _chose_ to be with you.”

    “Shut up!” Vaylin says again. This time her voice is higher pitched, almost a scream.

    She throws the droid’s head off Lycaea. It bounces off her metal chestplate.

    “Sith, what are you doing?” the GEMINI captain asks.

    Lycaea steps again towards her. “You can’t make the GEMINI captain obey you without removing her free will, and you can’t make me do so either.”

    The room starts to shake. Vaylin is trembling, and the Force radiates off her in jagged sudden bursts, hitting the walls and the ceiling at strange angles, making it seem as if it will come down on them.

    Lycaea has a million words on the tip of her tongue, but only all of them would probably make the situation worse, not better.

    _You don’t have to be your father -_ that would only escalate the situation.

    _Think of the value of captains that can make their own judgements in the field_ \- she wouldn’t care. And more of, Lycaea doesn’t _want_ to justify this with strategic value.

    She wants Vaylin to not do it because it's wrong, not to not do it because it might be bad for her fleet.

    “SCORPIO betrayed me, they will too!” Vaylin says. Her hands are up by the side of her head. Defensive. Cornered.

    “Maybe they will,” Lycaea says, at the same time the GEMINI captain says “We _won’t_!”

    “You already did when you didn’t _destroy my enemies_!”

    “Maybe they will,” Lycaea repeats. “Maybe I will.”

    Vaylin activates her lightsaber.

    Okay, that was a miscalculation. Lycaea mentally tries to calculate if she could live long enough to get out -

    - But she’s not intending on running.

    Vaylin stalks towards her. She looks down at her. Force flowing like Lycaea’s never seen before except - except on Ziost - and dark side energy all around her. Even though Zakuul doesn't have a clear dark or light side ideology, Vaylin definitely powers herself by her hatred and anger.

    Lycaea should be afraid. She knows this. But she can’t quite muster the emotions up for it. Instead she almost slumps, drained.

    She’s just _so so tired_.

    Vaylin raises her lightsaber.

    “You know that won’t do any good,” Lycaea says. She could easily prevent the lightsaber from hurting her. All it takes is the power of her hate channeled towards her skin. She’d be in much more trouble if Vaylin decided to use the Force on her.

    Vaylin snarls. Her eyes narrow. The hand holding her lightsaber is shaking.

    _She doesn’t want to kill me_.

    It’s the first time Lycaea’s gotten the idea Vaylin cares about her. She won’t say “loves” but -

    She doesn’t want her dead.

    Lycaea doesn’t let her face - or her reading in the Force - visibly emote. It’s the most useful skill one can develop, growing up in the Empire. No one can tell what you care about and then snatch you away, and no one can tell if you’re afraid. Vaylin can’t intimidate her - if she wants to control her, she’ll have to kill her, which she doesn’t want to do. It’s the moment of truth - if she wants friends or allies she can trust, who aren’t there because of fear, she can’t kill Lycaea. She knows it, too. That’s _why_ she’s mad.

    Lycaea doesn’t know how long Vaylin is there, hand shaking, rage coming off her in waves, GEMINI droid frozen in terror, Iokath droid rambling on about GEMINI’s inferiority. The stress of the situation - the danger of Vaylin - makes it feel like longer. Eventually, though, Vaylin switches off her lightsaber.

    As she does, as she acquiesces that she won’t kill Lycaea, her hatred in the Force grows. _She must hate me_ , Lycaea realizes, _because that’s what_ I _would have felt 12 years ago if I were confronted like this_.

    _Or because she realized she was acting like Valkorion, but perhaps that’s attributing her too much self awareness at the moment - no, not self awareness. She’s aware something’s wrong, but she can’t articulate it yet. Same as I was all my life._

    Vaylin drops the shield around the GEMINI captain. “Take that useless hunk of metal out of my sight this instant,” Vaylin says, voice so thick with emotion it sounds more like a snarl. “And don’t let me see you - ever again.”

    Lycaea takes that as a win. She helps the GEMINI droid to her feet, since she’d fallen straight to the floor. The GEMINI droid holds onto her desperately as Lycaea walks them to the door.

    Lycaea turns her back on Vaylin as she passes her - risky, leaving it exposed. But she knows she can’t win in a straight fight, so it doesn’t really matter. And she can _sense_ everything happening around her, using the Force. Vaylin isn’t difficult to sense - not at all. Still full of hatred, still full of anger, but something else is in there -

    Lycaea makes it out of the room and the doors shut behind her and a scream in the Force resonantes through the air - not an attack, just pain. Vaylin couldn’t take her pain out on a helpless GEMINI captain - Lycaea made sure of that. So now, she’s just stuck with the hatred and anger and resentfulness Valkorion left her with.

    And even Valkorion’s death wouldn’t help - if that evil asshole could even die. Because Lycaea had killed her father, years ago, and she still would wake up years later, feeling like she’s back in the Estate on Dromund Kaas. It’s unfair, she would say, if Sith were allowed to know the meaning of “fair”. You’re always stuck with what they left you with, you couldn’t even bury it with them.


End file.
